The Adding Machine Read Online Free PDF

plagiarism. I had not quite abandoned the fetish of originality, though of course the whole sublime concept of total theft is implicit in cut-ups and montage.
    You see, I had been conditioned to the idea of words as property — one’s ‘very own words’ — and consequently to a deep repugnance for the black sin of plagiarism. Originality was the great virtue. I recall a boy who was caught out copying an essay from a magazine article, and this horrible case discussed in whispers... for the first time the dark word ‘plagiarism’ impinged on my consciousness. Why, in a Jack London story a writer shoots himself when he finds out that he has, without knowing it, plagiarized another writer’s work. He did not have the courage to be a writer. Fortunately, I was made of sterner or at least more adjustable stuff.
    Brion pointed out to me that I had been stealing for years: ‘Where did that come from — “Eyes old, unbluffed, unreadable?” And that — “inflexible authority?” And that — “arty type, no principles.” And that — and that — and that?’ He looked at me sternly.
    ‘Vous etes un voleur honteux .. . a closet thief.’ So we drew up a manifesto .. .
    Les Voleurs
    Out of the closet and into the museums, libraries, architectural monuments, concert halls, bookstores, recording studios and film studios of the world. Everything belongs to the inspired and dedicated thief. All the artists of history, from cave painters to Picasso, all the poets and writers, the musicians and architects, offer their wares, importuning him like street vendors. They supplicate him from the bored minds of school children, from the prisons of uncritical veneration, from dead museums and dusty archives. Sculptors stretch forth their limestone arms to receive the life-giving transfusion of flesh as their severed limbs are grafted onto Mister America. Mais le voleur n’est pas pressé — the thief is in no hurry. He must assure himself of the quality of the merchandise and its suitability for his purpose before he conveys the supreme honor and benediction of his theft.
    Words, colors, light, sounds, stone, wood, bronze belong to the living artist. They belong to anyone who can use them. Loot the Louvre! A bas l’originalité, the sterile and assertive ego that imprisons as it creates. Vive le vol — pure, shameless, total. We are not responsible. Steal anything in sight.

Beauty and the Bestseller
    If your purpose is to make a lot of money on a book or a film, there are certain rules to observe. You’re aiming for the general public, and there are all sorts of things the general public just doesn’t want to see or hear. A good rule is never expect a general public to experience anything they don’t want to experience. You don’t want to scare them to death, knock them out of their seats, and above all you don’t want to puzzle them.
    There are certain bestseller formulas. For example, something that the movie-going or reading public knows something about and about which they want to know more: the Mafia, how a hotel is run, what happens in General Motors, in TV, advertising, and in Hollywood.
    Now, if they don’t know anything about a subject, no matter how good it looks it won’t look good to them. I had learned this years ago raising winter vegetables in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. There are three main areas for winter vegetables: California, Florida, and the Rio Grande Valley. If the tomatoes freeze in one area or better still, in two areas, it boosts the price of tomatoes in another area. There was this one farmer who had practically the only parsnips on the winter vegetable market, and he thought he had a fortune. But it turned out they were so rare that the ordinary housewife didn’t want to buy them. She had forgotten what a parsnip looked like and didn’t want to contact any such unknown winter vegetable. So there’s such a thing as being too rare.
    The other formula is the menace, the challenge posed by